/r/-retroflexion

Traditionally, the realization of /r/ in southern Irish English is as a velarized alveolar continuant, a pronunciation found in western and south-western varieties of Irish to this day. Thus, it can be assumed that this type of /r/ resulted in Irish English from transfer of the Irish realization of the same phoneme. In Northern Ireland, a retroflex /r/ is to be found, a parallel with Scotland, which may well have been the source for this realization. In current fashionable Dublin English a retroflex /r/ is also to be found, though definitely independently of the occurrence in Northern Ireland, as varieties of English there have played no role in the shaping of the speech of fashionable urbanites in Dublin. Dissociation from the traditional velarized realization is most likely the reason for the retroflex  which has become so widespread throughout Ireland among younger female speakers. A slightly raised /a˘/ ( [æ:], [ε:] co-occurs with the retroflexion of the /r/ so that one has pronunciations like  for card.